In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.
All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number, weight and measure in a year of dearth.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wi...

I

Brothers from far-away lands,
Sons of the fathers of fame,
Here are our hearts and our hands
This is our song of acclaim.
Lords from magnificent zones,
Shores of superlative sway,
Awful with lustre of thrones,
This is our greeting to-day.
Europe and Asia are here
Shining they enter our ports!
She that is half of the sphere
Beams like a sun in our courts.
Children of elders whose day
Shone to the planet’s white ends,
Meet, in the noble old way,
Sons of your forefather’s friends.



II

Dressed is the beautiful city the spires of it
Burn in the firmament stately and still;
Forest has vanished the wood and the lyres of it,
Lutes of the sea-wind and harps of the hill.
This is the region, and here is the bay...

Daphne! Ladon’s daughter, Daphne! Set thyself in silver light,
Take thy thoughts of fairest texture, weave them into words of white
Weave the rhyme of rose-lipped Daphne, nymph of wooded stream and shade,
Flying love of bright Apollo, fleeting type of faultless maid!
She, when followed from the forelands by the lord of lyre and lute,
Sped towards far-singing waters, past deep gardens flushed with fruit;
Took the path against Peneus, panted by its yellow banks;
Turned, and looked, and flew the faster through grey-tufted thicket ranks;
Flashed amongst high flowered sedges: leaped across the brook, and ran
Down to where the fourfold shadows of a nether glade began;
There she dropped, like falling Hesper, heavy hair of radiant head
Hiding all the young abundance of her beauty’s white and ...

Now heaven in mercy be kind to the wretches
Who stay on the earth like this Mrs. Merdle!

More wretched than ever a wretch on the hurdle
Was drawn by all England's official Jack Ketches;
More wretched, if can be, at church on a Sunday
A woman, who worships, than God, more her dress,
Would be if she heard or e'en thought Mrs. Grundy
Would sneer at the set of a bonnet or tress;
Or say that she thought Miss Freelove's new pattern
Of laces, or collars, or yard flowing sleeves,
Looked more like the dress of a real Miss Slattern
And not "so becoming"'s the first one of Eve's.

A Fragment.

In the dungeon-crypts idly did I stray,
Reckless of the lives wasting there away;
"Draw the ponderous bars! open, Warder stern!"
He dared not say me nay, the hinges harshly turn.

"Our guests are darkly lodged," I whisper'd, gazing through
The vault, whose grated eye showed heaven more gray than blue;
(This was when glad Spring laughed in awaking pride;)
"Ay, darkly lodged enough!" returned my sullen guide.

Then, God forgive my youth; forgive my careless tongue;
I scoffed, as the chill chains on the damp flagstones rung:
"Confined in triple walls, art thou so much to fear,
That we must bind thee down and clench thy fetters here?"

The captive raised her face; it was as soft and mild
As sculptured marble saint, or slumbering unwean'd chi...

April will come to the quiet town
That I left long ago,
Scattering primroses up and down--
Row upon happy row.
(Oh, little green lane, will she come your way,
To a certain path I know?)

April will pause by cottage and gate
In the wild, sweet evening rain,
Where the garden borders run brown and straight,
To coax them to bloom again.
(Oh, little sad garden that once was gay,
Must she call to you all in vain?)

April will come to cottage and hill,
Laughing her lovers awake.
(Oh, little closed house, so cold and still,
Will she find you for old joy's sake,
And leave one primrose beside your door,
Lest the heart of your garden break?)

I saw them beautiful, in fair array upon Commencement Day;
Lissome and lovely, radiant and sweet
As cultured roses, brought to their estate
By careful training.    Finished and complete
(As teachers calculate).

They passed in maiden grace along the aisle,
Leaving the chaste white sunlight of a smile
Upon the gazing throng.
Musing I thought upon their place as mothers of the race.

Oh there are many actors who can play
Greatly, great parts; but rare indeed the soul
Who can be great when cast for some small role;
Yet that is what the world most needs; big hearts
That will shine forth and glorify poor parts
In this strange drama, Life!    Do they,
Who in full dress-rehearsal pass to-day
Before admiring eyes, hold in their store
Those fine high pri...

Have, have ye no regard, all ye
Who pass this way, to pity Me,
Who am a man of misery!

A man both bruis'd, and broke, and one
Who suffers not here for Mine own,
But for My friends' transgression!

Ah! Sion's daughters, do not fear
The cross, the cords, the nails, the spear,
The myrrh, the gall, the vinegar;

For Christ, your loving Saviour, hath
Drunk up the wine of God's fierce wrath;
Only there's left a little froth,

Less for to taste than for to show
What bitter cups had been your due,
Had He not drank them up for you.

In this wise the Duke of Gloucester took upon himself the order and governance of the young King, whom, with much honour and humble reverence, he conveyed towards London. But the tidings of this matter came hastily to the Queen, a little before the midnight following; and that, in secret wise, her son was taken, her brother and other friends arrested, and sent no man wist whither, to be done with God wot what. With which tidings the Queen, with great heaviness, bewailed her child's reign, her friend's mischance, and her own misfortune, damning the time that ever she dissuaded the gathering of powers about the King; got herself, in all haste possible, with her young son and her daughter, out of the palace of Westminster, in which they then lay, into the Sanctuary; lodging herself and company there in the Abbott's place. - Speed's "History ...

Be not dismayed though crosses cast thee down;
Thy fall is but the rising to a crown.

This verdant field that smiles to Heaven
In Nature's bright array,
From common uses set apart,
We consecrate to-day.

"God's Acre" be it fitly called,
For when, beneath the sod,
We lay the dead with reverent hands,
We yield them back to God.

And His great love, so freely given,
Shall speak in clearer tones,
When, pacing through these hallowed walks,
We read memorial stones.

Here let the sunshine softly fall,
And gently drop the rain,
And Nature's countless harmonies
Blend one accordant strain;

That they who seek this sacred place,
In mourning solitude,
In all this gracious company
May have their faith renewed.

So, lifted to serener heights,
And purified from dross,
Their trustful hearts shall rest on G...

I

Why should I say I see the things I see not?
Why be and be not?
Show love for that I love not, and fear for what I fear not?
And dance about to music that I hear not?
Who standeth still i’ the street
Shall be hustled and justled about;
And he that stops i’ the dance shall be spurned by the dancers’ feet,
Shall be shoved and be twisted by all he shall meet,
And shall raise up an outcry and rout;
And the partner, too,
What ’s the partner to do?
While all the while ’tis but, perchance, an humming in mine ear,
That yet anon shall hear,
And I anon, the music in my soul,
In a moment read the whole;
The music in my heart,
Joyously take my part,
And hand in hand, and heart with heart, with these retreat, advance;
And borne on wings of wavy sound...

Love is the sunlight of the soul,
That, shining on the silken-tressèd head
Of her we love, around it seems to shed
A golden angel-aureole.

And all her ways seem sweeter ways
Than those of other women in that light:
She has no portion with the pallid night,
But is a part of all fair days.

Joy goes where she goes, and good dreams,
Her smile is tender as an old romance
Of Love that dies not, and her soft eye’s glance
Like sunshine set to music seems.

Queen of our fate is she, but crowned
With purple hearts-ease for her womanhood.
There is no place so poor where she has stood
But evermore is holy ground.

An angel from the heaven above
Would not be fair to us as she is fair:
She holds us in a mesh of silken hair,
This one swee...

Ye careful Angels, whom eternal Fate
Ordains, on Earth and human Acts to wait;
Who turn with secret Pow'r this restless Ball,
And bid predestin'd Empires rise and fall:
Your sacred Aid religious Monarchs own;
When first They merit, then ascend the Throne:
But Tyrants dread Ye, lest your just Decree
Transfer the Pow'r, and set the People free:
See rescu'd Britain at your Altars bow:
And hear her Hymns your happy Care avow:
That still her Axes and her Rods support
The Judge's Frown, and grace the awful Court:
That Law with all her pompous Terror stands,
To wrest the Dagger from the Traitor's Hands;
And rigid Justice reads the fatal Word;
Poises the Ballance first, then draws the Sword.

Britain Her Safety to your Guidance owns,
That She can sep'rate Pa...

I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!
The godly multitudes walked to and fro
Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,
With pious mien, appropriately sad,
While all the church bells made a solemn din,
A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.
Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,
With tranquil face, upon that holy show
A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
"God keep you, stranger," I exclaimed. "You are
No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
And yet I entertain the hope that you,
Like these good people, are a Christian too."
He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
It made me with a thousand blushes burn
Replied his manner with disdain was spiced:
"What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I'm Christ."

O Joy of creation
To be!
O rapture to fly
And be free!
Be the battle lost or won,
Though its smoke shall hide the sun,
I shall find my love, the one
Born for me!

I shall know him where he stands,
All alone,
With the power in his hands
Not o’erthrown;
I shall know him by his face,
By his godlike front and grace;
I shall hold him for a space,
All my own!

It is he O my love!
So bold!
It is I all thy love
Foretold!
It is I. O love! what bliss!
Dost thou answer to my kiss?
O sweetheart! what is this
Lieth there so cold?

As I lie at rest on a patch of clover
In the Western Park when the day is done,
I watch as the wild black swans fly over
With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun;
And I hear the clang of their leader crying
To a lagging mate in the rearward flying,
And they fade away in the darkness dying,
Where the stars are mustering one by one.

O ye wild black swans, 'twere a world of wonder
For a while to join in your westward flight,
With the stars above and the dim earth under,
Through the cooling air of the glorious night.
As we swept along on our pinions winging,
We should catch the chime of a church-bell ringing,
Or the distant note of a torrent singing,
Or the far-off flash of a station light.

From the northern lakes with the reeds and rushes,
Wh...

In Westminster's royal halls,
Robed in their pontificals,
England's ancient prelates stood
For the people's right and good.
Closed around the waiting crowd,
Dark and still, like winter's cloud;
King and council, lord and knight,
Squire and yeoman, stood in sight;
Stood to hear the priest rehearse,
In God's name, the Church's curse,
By the tapers round them lit,
Slowly, sternly uttering it.
"Right of voice in framing laws,
Right of peers to try each cause;
Peasant homestead, mean and small,
Sacred as the monarch's hall,
"Whoso lays his hand on these,
England's ancient liberties;
Whoso breaks, by word or deed,
England's vow at Runnymede;
"Be he Prince or belted knight,
Whatsoe'er his rank or might,
If the highest, then the worst,